An Early Look At Next-Gen Shooter Bodycount

If you ask fans of first-person shooters what feature they'd like to see in a new game, their answers — now and for the past 15 years — probably involve destructible environments. Game developers have tried to satisfy this demand with scripted events, breakable objects, and more crates than you can shake a rocket launcher at. However, Bodycount, an upcoming game from Codemasters Guildford, is aiming to deliver what gamers have wanted for so long: the ability to blast apart whatever you please. Quoting the Guardian's games blog from their hands-on with the game: "... it's not just about effect, it's about access. In Bodycount, you can blow chunks out of thinner interior walls, allowing you to burst through and catch enemies by surprise. You can also brilliantly modify cover objects – if you're hiding behind a crate and want to take out enemies without popping up from behind it, shoot a hole in it. Bingo, you've got a comparatively safe firing vantage. The difference between this and say, Red Faction or Bad Company, is that the destruction isn't limited to pre-set building sections. It's everywhere. This should, of course, grind the processor to a halt, but the team has come up with a simple compromise to facilitate its vision. 'The trick is that we're not running full physics on everything,' explains lead coder, Jon Creighton. ... This is tied in with one of the best cover systems I've ever seen. While in a crouching position (gained by holding the left trigger down), you can use the left analogue stick to subtly look and aim around your cover object, ducking and peeking to gain that perfect view of the war zone. It's natural, it's comfortable and it's adaptive, and it will surely consign the whole 'locking on' mechanic to the graveyard of cover system history."

Comments

The only question that counts:

[Opportunist]

Will this also be available on a system with an input controller suitable for shooters? Like, say, a mouse?

Else, pass. No matter how good the effects, if I can't control my character, I don't need it.

Re:The only question that counts:

[jo_ham]

If it ends up on a system with a mouse and keyboard then it will have some sort of brainlessly crippling DRM, like an active internet connection to play single player, and thus you still won't be able to control your character.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Thanshin]

I agree, but I'd also like to point out that the technology is ready to give players the separation of vision and aim.

I want to be able to watch in a direction, run in another and shoot in another one. As running is going to be linked to a hand (as foot controls are cumbersome) and shooting to the other, vision should be linked to head movement.

What I'm suggesting is: Don't "evolve" to mouse control if you can truly evolve.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Opportunist]

The less lawful person inside me would say that this problem is easy to fix, compared to the problem of having to use a controller that's not suited for this type of game.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Dexter Herbivore]

My question is, with all these accelerometers appearing in console controllers, why don't they implement an input system based on them for an FPS?

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

coming out for 360 and ps3 only. why don't the companies just build in the support for the mouse/keyboard.
there is a third party project called 'XIM 2' working on this for the the 360.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

Multiple monitors. It's already been done.

Aside from that, I can't ever see a situation where I would need to be looking in one direction while firing blindly in another.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Barny]

Because they suck for it, not accurate enough or fast enough for them.

Its the same thing as when people think "oh a touch screen would be awesome for FPS", no, no it isn't.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Barny]

Wait, uh, how do you line up a target your not looking at?

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wii already has several FPS games that use the IR pointer for aiming, and I believe the Playstation Move will be usable for shooting games as well. I don't think the accelerometer alone would be very effective.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, uh, how do you line up a target your not looking at?

If you mean "line up a target while you're not looking at it", I guess that's possible if the target is big enough or your weapon powerful enough for you take shots at the enemy without looking at it.

Originally Quake 3 was going to have this control style ... "this" meaning a control scheme where you can simultaneously run, shoot and look at different directions.

Re:The only question that counts:

[daranz]

Off the top of my head, ArmA with TrackIR already implements a control scheme like this.

Operation Flashpoint already featured a control scheme that allowed the player to detach look control from gun-pointing and walking-direction control, and that carried over to ArmA. Of course, without an additional input device, it's somewhat useless, as you have to give up control of your gun to gain control of your character's head. So that's where a bunch of markers attached to the player's head come in. Even without that, it's still useful to be able to quickly glance around while in full sprint - something possible in real life, but impossible in most FPSes, where your camera/character's head is fixed rigidly to his body at all times.

Re:The only question that counts:

[icebraining]

Yeah, well, I have that in my PSOne. But those are not for FPSes, those are for rail shooters. I think an accelerometer could be used for things like leaning or so. Not that I would prefer it over normal buttons.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

try the FragFX controller.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wii's IR sensor is used for FPS games and rail shooters alike. Point to edge of screen to turn, use external analog stick to move around. When done right, it works really well.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Fred_A]

Will this also be available on a system with an input controller suitable for shooters? Like, say, a mouse?

I was somewhat baffled by the reference to "left triggers" and "left analogue stick" until it finally dawned on me that they were talking about some kind of console controller (since my monitor is larger than my TV, I never bothered with consoles).

An FPS ported from a console likely will end up having some or all of approximate weapon aiming, textures designed for a ten year old PC, an awkward interface, poor networking support, etc.

So maybe they came up with something somewhat clever but I'll still pass.

Re:The only question that counts:

[AHuxley]

640p* and small world sizes should be enough for anybody.
*HD ready.

Re:The only question that counts:

[L4t3r4lu5]

Console games: Sports, driving games, fighting, button-mashers.
PC games: RPGs, first person shooters.

If it ain't on PC, you can take one lost sale away from the "OMG TEH PIEWATS!" statistics, and add it onto "Don't know which platform a game should be developed for" chart.

I've played FPS games on a PC and a console. If I have to wait 2+ seconds to spin 180 degrees, or the same amount of time lining up the crosshair / ironsight to get a headshot, you've failed in creating a good FPS.

Re:The only question that counts:

[KDR_11k]

Of course a system with a Wii Remote would be a good compromise that gives both good controls and no nasty DRM but developers seem to be all about graphics now so they never make Wii games unless they're worthless shovelware.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Garth Smith]

I grew up gaming on PCs. It started with Wolf 3D (the original) and continued until I burned myself out on five years of Counterstrike (Beta 0.52? to 1.5).

As an adult with no time I've come to appreciate the convenience and cheapness of consoles. At first I hated joysticks. After GT4, Uncharted 2, and a shitload of Modern Warfare 2, I can now top the scoreboard with three people sitting next to me, and I can do it far more often than I could have LAN parties. While a mouse still gives better control than a joystick, many of the same skills do transfer. Strategy does change slightly, many a lot more running because you can't check your six, but pwning my friends is fun no matter the method, and with a PS3 I can do it waaaaaaay more often.

Re:The only question that counts:

[KDR_11k]

The touchscreen works fine for FPS on the DS, not the iPhone though. The DS has the touchscreen separate from the main view and buttons in addition to the screen, on the iPhone you can only use your thumbs for movement and button pressing so aiming and firing tends to be very clunky.

Accelerometers aren't the right approach for aiming but the Wii's IR pointer function works perfectly. Doesn't allow turning as fast as the mouse but a properly designed game accounts for that.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Inda]

I used to play FPS games way, way back before the RSI and sore shoulders got the better of me. I was never that good at them but still spent all evening playing and then some.

These days I play FPSs solely on the 360. I'm forever getting the most kills, the most headshots, leading the pack - why? Either I've gotten better, or everyone else has gotten worse.

I can flick the thumb stick and the crosshair lands pretty close to the target. No different than using a mouse. A little step left or right with the left stick and there's the headshot. No different than an adjustment using "A" or "D". The controller feels as natural as a keyboard and mouse.

I understand that diehards fine the controller hard to use because I did too. It doesn't take long to get used to it though.

Re:The only question that counts:

[icebraining]

Oh, I didn't know about those schemes. I'm still attached to the whole concept that the game only knows where you shoot, not where the gun is at all times. Lots of images of arcade Time Crisis still in my head :)

Re:The only question that counts:

[AK Marc]

You direct your aiming controller that way. Not that anyone hits anything this way, but people can easily point a gun to their left while running forward and looking right in real life, so why are "realistic" video games set to where you can never shoot anywhere you aren't looking?

Re:The only question that counts:

[AGMW]

Aside from that, I can't ever see a situation where I would need to be looking in one direction while firing blindly in another.

and

Wait, uh, how do you line up a target your not looking at?

Years ago I played a state-of-the-art full immersion shooter with headset for visuals and gloves for pointing, etc. The graphics were pretty lame (compared with the current crop) but it was awesome to be able to run through a room whilst focusing on the door I was running towards and be able to shoot the bad guys on either side by aiming just using my peripheral vision.

So, I wasn't (directly) looking at the target(s), or indeed firing blindly (as I hit most with the first shot!) and with good (binocular) vision you just "know" where the targets are and can 'point' at them with yer gun(s). Sure, you're not going to get so many H E A D S H O Ts, but it was really good fun, even with the crappy old graphics!

Re:The only question that counts:

[Opportunist]

All nice and fine, I'm not religiously attached to the mouse/keyboard style of controls. I'm all game for better input controls.

I'm not complaining about an input method other than my prefered one. I'm complaining about one that is, at least in my opinion, not suited for the game at hand. I find trying to aim with a game pad highly frustrating. You push that thumbstick ... ok, a bit more to the right... no, not that much, a bit back ... sigh, again too far, let's take a step to the left maybe we can even it out that ... whoops, someone noticed and shot me...

Sorry, but when I play FPS, I want to fight my adversaries, not the controller.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

A mouse is better in an FPS when all you need is to look around, strafe and run forward. Game pads have their own advantages. For instance, the cover system they are describing will probably work better when using two analogue sticks.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

People can probably physically do it but I've never seen someone run, look behind them and fire on their left when I was in the army... there must be a reason... Oh I got it! it's useless, realistic, but nevertheless useless

Re:The only question that counts:

[Narishma]

Originally Quake 3 was going to have this control style ... "this" meaning a control scheme where you can simultaneously run, shoot and look at different directions.

[citation needed]

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

I can flick the thumb stick and the crosshair lands pretty close to the target. No different than using a mouse. A little step left or right with the left stick and there's the headshot. No different than an adjustment using "A" or "D". The controller feels as natural as a keyboard and mouse.

Mostly, the reason for this is that the game is developed with the expectation that users are playing on a joypad. All number of compromises extend from that. Along with frame rate and display limitation issues, this serves to limit the scope of the game.

There is a reason that 99% of console fps can only be played online against other console users. If you mixed PC and console clients the experience would not be enjoyable for either party. Hands up who played Quake 3 online against Dreamcast players.

I've been playing multiplayer fps since ~1996 and after a long hiatus from games, moved to a console for convenience reasons (time, practicality). Within a few months I found myself with my first new PC in 7 years and back to hopping PC servers. Console fps are a different breed to their PC cousins and while I understand that many enjoy them, I don't like what the console is doing to my favourite genre.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Shadow of Eternity]

Never saw a resolution iwth 640 vertical lines but in 2000 I was using a trinitron that did 1200P @85hz. If I'd had a little more $$$ I could've gotten the widescreen version that did 1500P.

Oh I'm sorry I forgot mentioning that makes the "Chyeah 1080P brah" crowd froth at the mouth a bit.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Shadow of Eternity]

Your eyes have apparently gotten worse as well if you haven't noticed that most modern console shooters are that easy because they're basically doing half the aiming for you.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Barny]

Was talking touch screen on pc, but point taken, the game definitely needs to be customised to the input for it to work.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Barny]

In the same vein, I can run at a door and track and shoot targets perfectly well with my mouse and keyboard without losing my bearing about my heading or target and what would you rather focus on, the door or what will be shooting back at you?

Re:The only question that counts:

[Barny]

Yeah, my thoughts, the only 2 times in a game when this would work would be:

1. Lock on targeting, like MMOG, oh wait, people already do this with pan camera, select a target and run in another direction.

2. When using a weapon as a suppressive tool, but then, you are generally not wanting to look away in case you are not hitting near your target and they are lining you up for a shot.

Re:The only question that counts:

[internettoughguy]

I want to be able to watch in a direction, run in another and shoot in another one.

Never before has the string "your doing it wrong" been more apt.

Re:The only question that counts:

[somersault]

If your plan is to get to cover rather than kill the enemies, probably the door.. in this situation, mouse = good, keyboard = not quite so good (as an analog stick). I basically vowed years ago that I'd never play FPSes on a console, but it isn't so bad when you get used to it, and as long as you know everybody else is limited in the same way. Still, I'd like to be able to play most games with a mouse for aiming and a pad for other controls - and in fact you could do this with Quake 2 on the PS1. I wonder if any of my current PS3 FPSes support mouse aiming...

Re:The only question that counts:

[PopeRatzo]

you still won't be able to control your character.

Nonsense. The reason we can't control our characters in PC gaming is because game manufacturers have figured out that they can cut a corner and port their crappy console games for PC.

Companies that don't develop specifically for the PC platform are leaving a lot of money on the table, DRM or not. The ones that figure that out are going to make a lot of dough.

The Half-Life games were not crappy console ports, and they made Valve enough money to start Steam. And Gordon Freeman was not some 2nd-person wooden puppet that I had to use combination techniques to fight with or run with. When I said "jump" he said "how high?". When I said "duck" he ducked. With a crowbar in one hand and his dick in the other he crossed friggin' dimensions to put shit right...

Sorry, I got carried away there. Anyway as I was saying, somebody's going to figure out that people on PC's want to play games and we've got the hardware to do it. We'll pay for games, too, but you can't fuck us around with console ports and if you treat us like criminals with the always-on DRM, we're going to act like criminals.

Re:The only question that counts:

[AHuxley]

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/09/28/halo-3-not-hd-runs-at-640p-pixel-counters-claim/ :)

Re:The only question that counts:

[TheRaven64]

I agree, but I'd also like to point out that the technology is ready to give players the separation of vision and aim.

Mechwarrior 2 had this control scheme. You controlled the direction your legs were moving in, the direction your torso was aiming, and the direction that your guns were aiming, all independently. Most people just locked the targeting to the center of their torso.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine these companies haven't run the figures to see if spending X more on the PC version than the console in order to get the controls spot on is worth the return it would generate. Considering it's almost zero effort for them at the moment, and their time and effort is almost certainly better spent developing for consoles which are a much bigger market, I can't see it ever being worth their time to put more than a passing effort into a PC port. The fact that they haven't just dropped PC support completely should be seen as a boon.

Re:The only question that counts:

[delinear]

It sounds horrible - even picturing doing that in real life sounds like a recipe for disaster, without having to have a further input device separating your thoughts and actions.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Hatman39]

I believe MechWarrior (at least 3 and 4) had this control scheme, you could pivot the arms on your mech separately from the torso.
This was advantageous because sometimes you'd hit another mech and this would prevent your torso from turning. Also, mindlessly blowing pulse lasers in some direction was occasionally useful (basically to prevent someone from standing still and lining up a shot).
In short, I can see uses for it, especially in tactical shooters with one-shot-one-kill dynamics where getting shot at is a very good reason to immediately seek cover. If we're talking UT here, yeah, the point becomes a bit moot.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Jarik C-Bol]

nah, you just bind q and e to that function, or some of the dozens of extra buttons on your mouse. thats the thing about PC games, you can make the controls fit your play-style. If something is awkward to do on a console game, chances are, you just have to live with it.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

(since my monitor is larger than my TV, I never bothered with consoles).

While I can't disagree with your other comments on console ports, this seems a weird reason for never owning a console - you realise you can use them with your monitor, right? As for the reasons to own one when you already have a powerful gaming PC, well, to play console exclusive titles, to avoid the misery of incompatible drivers or DRM that refuses to let you play a game you've bought with cold, hard cash, avoiding the PC upgrade arms race, being able to just throw a game directly from the case into the system and play without an hour of installing, being able to rent or resell games (okay, for some PC games this isn't an issue, but for the majority online activation makes it practically impossible). For me, I'd rather play a marathon gaming session at the desk using the PC, while a quick blast to pass some time feels much more natural at a console.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Jarik C-Bol]

I'm all for better input controls. I'm not all for having to buy some new gizmo for every new game that comes to market.

Re:The only question that counts:

[delinear]

For me, I always felt twitch play should be a lesser consideration to learning the maps and which weapons to use in which situations, of course reactions should still play some part, I just don't think they should be so disproportionate. I dislike the fact that, on a PC, the main delimiter in whether I win or lose is my reaction time and that, no matter how much experience or tactical knowledge of the game I have, I can still be outgunned by a 14 year old hyped up on red bull and cheetos, which for me reduces the game to the level of "here's some randomly flashing lights on the screen, click them as fast as possible" - sometimes I'll get lucky and click before everyone else, but it doesn't feel like an accomplishment. Consoles take the edge off that, when it takes actual effort to volte face to deal with an enemy unexpectedly on your flank, you learn to anticipate and plan your movements, which for me plays as a slightly different game. YMMV, of course, and having said all that I still enjoy firing up TF2 for a manic frag fest once in a while.

Re:The only question that counts:

[promythyus]

UT3 I believe.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

2. When using a weapon as a suppressive tool

I've never seen this actually work in a game. Not against AI, not against humans. In real life, a single stray bullet can easily ruin your day, so caution is obviously smart. In a game, someone firing in your general direction is unlikely to hit anything, and even if they do, no big deal.

Re:The only question that counts:

[boneclinkz]

I would like independent control for field of vision, movement direction, and aiming. Essentially, three different controllers. Also, I'd like a little hinge-mounted mallet on the vision controller that swings down and hits you in the groin when you take damage in the game.

Re:The only question that counts:

[somersault]

I've never really enjoyed the Unreal style of "shoot your enemies a million times" compared to games where one or two decent hits will kill (not counting stuff like the Sniper rifle in Unreal). This discussion actually made me look into the subject and I've just ordered a Fragnstein, looks like a decent option and it should work with any of my FPS games :)

Re:The only question that counts:

[L4t3r4lu5]

I very rarely play multiplayer FPS's, I meant single player. Fiddling with an analogue stick to align the weapon in just the right place to headshot in Modern Warfare 2 on the PS3 *really* irritated the hell out of me. That would be a half-second move with a mouse.

Re:The only question that counts:

[nedlohs]

Suppressive fire?

Using a weapon that has an area of effect so accuracy doesn't matter so much?

Re:The only question that counts:

[ArmyOfFun]

I agree. I guess I still prefer a mouse to a joystick but both the controllers and the games have gotten much better for console FPS'. It doesn't make much difference to me now. I migrated to consoles for similar reasons as you did (mainly cost). I miss trying out community generated mods and maps but that's my biggest gripe.

Joystick movement of character movement is better than wasd. It's much harder to do a mix of tip-toeing, walking and running on a keyboard. You usually have a sprint button and you might move slower when you're crouching or laying prone but that's about it. You pointed out the biggest console deficiency - quick turns, although some games have a quick turn-around button (LFD2 has one on 360 for example). The quick-turn around button isn't as good but it's a serviceable work-around.

It's not really precision that's missing in joystick controls, you can be just as accurate with a joystick. Rather, the difference is the rate at which you can accurately hit a target. What I've found is that the joystick accuracy lag actually feels more realistic than being able to move your reticule nearly instantly with a mouse. In real life, even the pros can't move a rifle to a new target 40 yards away as fast as you can flick the mouse the same distance in a game. The result is that console guns "feel" like they have weight. It could be argued whether that bit of realism is good or bad but the weighted movement is starting to grow on me.

Re:The only question that counts:

[GameboyRMH]

My first thought was the Mechwarrior games as well, but the combat in those games is closer to a flight sim or a tank game than a FPS. I have absolutely no desire to look and shoot in separate directions in a FPS. I just make my mouse very sensitive and if I want to peek in one direction, I just look over quickly and look back. This way I can glance as quickly as IRL. Having a 16:9 screen helps.

Re:The only question that counts:

[GameboyRMH]

Haven't played any of the older Tom Clancy games, I see.

Re:The only question that counts:

[vegiVamp]

If I remember the fifteen minutes I spent on Red Steel correctly, that also separated vision from aim. I absolutely hated the game due to being a bitch to control. Not entirely sure if the separation was a cause, but I kicked it out regardless.

Re:The only question that counts:

[IndustrialComplex]

2. When using a weapon as a suppressive tool

I've never seen this actually work in a game. Not against AI, not against humans. In real life, a single stray bullet can easily ruin your day, so caution is obviously smart. In a game, someone firing in your general direction is unlikely to hit anything, and even if they do, no big deal.

I agree. I've only ever seen it work in games with a HIGH penalty for getting shot or injured AND the people playing were somewhat skilled so that the standard run forward and eventually get lucky tactic wasn't employed. So many games feel like human wave attacks.

Early versions of Day of Defeat had bleed effects and would slow down forward progress. In addition, it was tuned so that bullets were pretty lethal even if fired from a pistol. Contrast that to many 'realistic' games in which even a pistol takes multiple hits to kill. Another issue with modern games is that the target generally operates perfectly no matter if they are at 100% health or 10% health (and what is 'health'?) Red Orchestra seemed to do somewhat well. I have a fondness for DoD as it generally made machine guns feared. A well placed machine gun could be very difficult to remove and it worked well for denying an area to an opponent.

It is interesting to note that of the few games I've played that employ the 'regenerating health' mechanic, it does seem to encourage greater use of cover, which is something I like to see in games. If a warhammer mechanic could be combined to give defensive bonuses to areas designated as cover, you might see more people take advantage of it. Unfortunately we sometimes have to employ these devices since the medium is still very far removed from what it is trying to simulate.

I'd love to find a multiplayer FPS that made me fearful of getting injured or killed in game.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Hurricane78]

Seconded. Only consoles and pussies need a cover system. Because they are too inexact and clunky.

If you disagree, let’s meet for a round of Quake 3 Challenge Pro-Mode Arena on my server. You with the console, and no aiming assistance, and me with my real computer. ^^

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

You direct your aiming controller that way. Not that anyone hits anything this way, but people can easily point a gun to their left while running forward and looking right in real life, so why are "realistic" video games set to where you can never shoot anywhere you aren't looking?

People can also easily point the gun straight in the air, put one hand in their pocket, and make silly faces while hopping on one leg. Why don't "realistic" video games allow this, too?

Oh yeah, because it's pointless, just like firing randomly in a direction you're not looking while running in yet another direction.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why yes, I hear it's available for the Wii! (runs and ducks)

Re:The only question that counts:

[Idiomatick]

I never understood the "Chyeah 1080P brah" crowd. When HD was coming out I was thinking hmmmm... this 'P' measurement is stupid, why not give the resolution instead? But the answer was obvious. If TVs advertised their new super high res as 1920x1800 anyone with a computer would have thought... hmmm I've had 1280x1024 since 1991 on my computer. So in 18~19years they've been able to moderately increase the resolution... with significantly lower pixels/cm. WTF kind of improvement is that?

If I look at a computer monitor today I can get 2560x1600; 1920x1200 in a laptop. TVs just have some kind of automatic suckage. (Also, computer monitors are generally crisper since they have to deal with text)

Re:The only question that counts:

[Idiomatick]

RPGs work well on consoles. It is just that the players of RPGs seem to have move more to computers.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Draek]

Driving games belong on a PC, sorry. On consoles there's far too much temptation for devs to target the average user with his average gamepad, to the detriment of the game's quality, but on PCs it's recognized already that keyboards suck for driving so they're free to say "high-end racing wheel or GTFO" and crank the realism up to 11.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Idiomatick]

Consoles get free auto-aim because the coders realized how shit the controls are. And yes, gamers of today are shittier than the ones before console shooters. Mostly nerds played CS source, UT tournament. Now you have a group that calls themselves 'hardcore gamers' they aren't the group of ten years ago that were almost all nerds that'd memorize the whole level including spawn timings and be able to shoot people fairly accurately based on sound alone. (I had a friend that had learned the whole AI for bots in UT and abused them as pawns in fights).

They are what I would call jocks. Sort of slovenly drunk college guys. Not incredibly smart and not very good at games. It is no longer uncool to play games (so long as it is sports or explosions) so they have the opportunity. And they like shooting/exploding things (same demographic that gets stuck in the army, which is why you hear people in the actual army going 'boom headshot'). Just jocks minus physical ability.

I don't care if you think this is a troll, search your feelings for you will know it to be true.

Re:The only question that counts:

[FiloEleven]

I want to be able to watch in a direction, run in another and shoot in another one.

Well I'm glad to see that there's a push to move away from realism, anyway.

Re:The only question that counts:

[hduff]

I've gotten to like the mouse for my PS3. The FPSs play much more enjoyably for me now, but more potential for button customization would be nice.

Re:The only question that counts:

[mrchaotica]

Having played Wii FPSs (e.g. The Conduit), I still like using a mouse better.

Re:The only question that counts:

[mrchaotica]

[it will have some sort of brainlessly crippling DRM... and thus] you still won't be able to control your character.

Nonsense....if you treat us like criminals with the always-on DRM, we're going to act like criminals.

So, his argument was nonsense and then you agreed with him?

Re:The only question that counts:

[mrchaotica]

What PC driving game has more realism than Gran Turismo or Forza?

Re:The only question that counts:

[drsquare]

Tell that to the people who've made millions off Halo, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy etc. Face it, no-one cares if some 'hardcore gamer' can't spin 180 degrees with a flick of the mouse.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Peach Rings]

Doesn't allow turning as fast as the mouse

So why would you play an FPS on the Wii instead of on the PC?

Re:The only question that counts:

[PopeRatzo]

I can't imagine these companies haven't run the figures to see if spending X more on the PC version than the console in order to get the controls spot on is worth the return it would generate

Just because there may be more money to be made in consoles doesn't mean that nobody wants to make the money that can be made from making games for PCs.

Piracy or not, there's a lot of money on the table. Somebody's going to come along and try to earn it.

Re:The only question that counts:

[PopeRatzo]

So, his argument was nonsense and then you agreed with him?

Nah, I was just not clear enough in stating which part of his argument I agreed with and which parts I thought were nonsense.

Re:The only question that counts:

[CarpetShark]

Will this also be available on a system with an input controller suitable for shooters? Like, say, a mouse?

Your mice have input controllers suitable for shooters? Clearly you're from a very cybernetically advanced society... albeit a slightly violent one.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

Console games: Sports, driving games, fighting, button-mashers.
PC games: RPGs, first person shooters.

Really? You sure about that? The most popular FPS of all time was build and sold primarily for console use.

Re:The only question that counts:

[JarinArenos]

I think that's missing the point a bit. Q and E are digital inputs. You can either be "Leaned all the way out" exposing yourself to fire, or "covered, but can't see a darn thing" fully hidden. There's no soft middle-ground. It's the same reason that games like GTA and Saint's Row (and other hybrid shooting/driving) games suffer on the PC. The computer only has one analog input: the mouse. WASD is great for fast-moving shooters where you don't care how fast you're moving, you just want to go THAT WAY. It's not so great when you want degrees of movement, like say, turning a steering wheel, or peeking out of cover slightly.

Re:The only question that counts:

[spun]

Here's a realistic scenario where you might want to do that: you are dashing from a spot of cover to an exit. Your enemies are to the left, say. You look ahead and begin running, look towards your enemies and begin firing, look back to the door to see if anyone has popped out of it, then back to the enemies, then to the right to make sure you haven't missed someone hiding, all the while firing blindly towards the known enemies to suppress their return fire. You are running straight ahead, firing to the left, and looking in all directions.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Barny]

Yeah, was thinking those too, rainbow6: raven shield was my drug of choice back in the day. If a bullet hit you and you were lucky (and it was low powered rounds) you would be limping slowly and have bad accuracy for the rest of the round, if unlucky you were dead, wait for restart.

And considering this game had the 200 round clip fn minimi and a 100 round clip M60, suppressive fire was VERY much doable. But completely and utterly useless if it wasn't pointed in the right direction.

Re:The only question that counts:

[crafty.munchkin]

not everyone uses WASD - I use RFDG for the extra buttons on either side, and I can think of at least one person who has their quake config such that mouse1 is his button to move forward...

Re:The only question that counts:

[lena_10326]

A mouse is far more accurate than the Wii-mote because a mouse requires less movement and is not confined to a rectangular box that is the screen. It's not an equal comparable. The Wii supports USB keyboards but not while in game. It would have been trivial to add keyboard and mouse support to games (or keep if porting from PC), which would have brought the Wii up to par with the PC for FPS games--at least inputwise. It would have made things like Quake Live on the Wii very doable.

Oh well.

Re:The only question that counts:

[JarinArenos]

My point was that it's still a digital input. Each direction is only ON or OFF. There's no "half ON" for walking or for making smoother turns. I don't care if you use WASD or YGHJ or GVBN.

I guess the optimal here would be a dedicated gaming input for the PC that has a thumbstick-style input for the left hand. I'm pretty sure I've seen a few of those in the past. But I don't even know if the majority of PC games would support a second analog input, even if you had one handy.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Opportunist]

These days I play FPSs solely on the 360. I'm forever getting the most kills, the most headshots, leading the pack - why? Either I've gotten better, or everyone else has gotten worse.

Neither. But you actually learned to aim. Something contemporary console shooter users lack. They never really learned to aim for something. They rely solely on the auto-aim feature of those console games. Something that you use as a helpful tool to improve your aim. Necessarily so, because the controls are woefully inaccurate. You manage to flick your stick in such a way that you get a headshot. Actually, you don't. You do manage this because you happen to be accurate enough that the aiming aid realizes you want to land a headshot.

Try it! Try to aim a few pixels to the right of your target (or left, your choice). Depending on the quality of the auto-aim, it will compensate for your "error" and get you a clean headshot instead.

And, sorry, but this has nothing to do anymore with what I consider a sensible shooter experience. I want to win or lose depending on my ability to direct my crosshair on the enemy and my ability to predict his movement on the map. Not just the latter. If I want to play a tactical game, I play RTS games.

Which, again, have no home on consoles.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Draek]

Race On, iRacing, Live for Speed, rFactor, hell even good ol' NASCAR Racing 2003 Season is better than Gran Turismo and its ilk.

Re:The only question that counts:

[gullevek]

System Shock 1 had that feature. The mouse controlled where you shot and the keyboard how moved and looked.

Re:The only question that counts:

[ElderKorean]

I agree, but I'd also like to point out that the technology is ready to give players the separation of vision and aim.

I want to be able to watch in a direction, run in another and shoot in another one. As running is going to be linked to a hand (as foot controls are cumbersome) and shooting to the other, vision should be linked to head movement.

What I'm suggesting is: Don't "evolve" to mouse control if you can truly evolve.

Like Mechwarrior had many years ago. I had a Microsoft Sidewinder joystick for this game. The three parts of your mech could all be facing different directions. Head, torso with weapons, and legs. Battles could get very difficult if you forgot that the guns were pointing in a different direction to your head (and legs)

I don't think that a mouse with it's limited movement options is up to this challenge.

Perhaps an iPhone could be used as a controller seeing as if can deal with rotation, and direction.
Or you might be able to use it as a remote camera /display for games.
If you put it in your pocket then a linked game could detect if you are leaning to get a better view around an obstacle.

Re:The only question that counts:

[bigstrat2003]

With a crowbar in one hand and his dick in the other...

So that's why you're limited to the first-person view.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

PC Games will support any input you can write a driver for.

It's consoles that you're thinking of, where you have to use the controller that comes with it.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Shadow of Eternity]

Same thing with widescreen. It's entirely hinged on the advertising of being "more cinematic" when in reality it's designed entirely for the purpose of selling more screens with lower overall pixel counts and less overall screen area.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

And why would I need to be looking away while laying down suppressive fire? I can already hear around me with 3D positional audio, so how does looking away help at all?

Maybe it's useful if you're using a slow input device like a gamepad, but with a mouse it's a simple flick of the wrist. If I really had to look at something, I could do so and return to looking in the previous direction in a microsecond.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

1600x1200 = 1,920,000 pixels @ 4:3 aspect
1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels @ 16:9 aspect

You fail.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Shadow of Eternity]

2048x1536 = 3,145,728 pixels @ 4:3 aspect
1280x720 = 921 pixels @ 16:9 aspect

I can handpick comparisons to say whatever I want too!

Now try comparing a 4:3 screen to a 16:9 screen with the same diagonal measurement (of actual viewable area...) which is the REAL comparison.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Johann Lau]

Yes, the army is useless. Realistic, but nevertheless useless.

look behind them and fire on their left when I was in the army... there must be a reason...

The reason is that soldiers are wetware-based bots which are (somewhat) expensive, so they have to be used wisely, while playing a video game is a bit more free than that. I think your misunderstanding here is that what single-purpose drones do or don't do should somehow be relevant to the choices of more fully developed human beings.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Xamataca]

I wonder if consoles support advanced mouses... (just a question, really, I got no console)

Re:The only question that counts:

[Jarik C-Bol]

well, in that case, perhaps when crouched, against cover, it modifies your mouse input to do leans, or whatever. what I'm saying is, the mouse/keyboard combo is very versatile, and can be adapted to huge arrays of tasks and play-styles, where a console controller is far more limited.

Re:The only question that counts:

[JarinArenos]

At which point you can't aim while leaning out of cover. Sure, you can add a "lean" modifier button; holding shift or something, but the fact remains that while the keyboard/mouse combo IS very versatile, it has limitations. You'll never get past the single-analog-input issue. If you want to get technical, the 360 controller has FOUR analog inputs (though admittedly, the triggers almost never get used as such). Yes, it's very limited in versatility, but it does have advantages. There are a lot of games (I'd even say the majority) that work better with a keyboard/mouse setup than with a controller, but not all of them.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

heh... I thought Duke Nuke'Em was the one with the excess testosterone.

Re:The only question that counts:

[Jarik C-Bol]

understandable. Here's to hoping the keyboard i saw demoed a while back that had analog style inputs for every key comes to market. http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/10/08/microsofts-pressure-sensitive-keyboard-gets-some-apps/ not the original article, but if this becomes common, it seriously puts keyboard/mouse on the forefront of gaming.

Re:The only question that counts:

[JarinArenos]

That would be utterly amazing. Though it might still run into a bit of the 8-way run issue. Running at something other than a 45 degree angle would require holding down (for example) A and W, but pressing on A slightly less hard. Certainly doable, but still not as intuitive as "point thumbstick and go". But at least it becomes possible at that point, and I'm sure reflexes would catch up quickly enough.

Re:The only question that counts:

[PAStheLoD]

Just make Q a modifier key. While holding Q you control the amount of leaning by your mouse. You can still fire with left mouse button.

Or Control, or Shift, and you can still move around with WASD while maintaining the lean of the body. No need for another analog device.

Re:The only question that counts:

[JarinArenos]

So when you're holding the Q key and leaning with your mouse, you can still fire just fine... but how do you aim? This discussion is reaching the point of religious apologism here. If you're trying to do two things at once that require fine control, you cannot do it through one analog input.

Let's move away from FPS for a moment into an example from a related genre. Take a game like Saint's Row or GTA. Driving is accomplished with WASD, which means that your options are either "drive straight" or "turn the wheel all the way to the side". Steering is jerky and crashes are inevitable. Now, you could press a modifier key to steer with the mouse for fine control (and admittedly, that option would have been nice) but then while steering, you'd be incapable of looking around. Now maybe while you're holding shift and remapping steering, looking is remapped to WASD, so at least you can look in the four main directions, but that's still inferior to having full camera control AND steering control simultaneously. Two simultaneous analog actions require two inputs.

Please understand where I'm coming from. I prefer PC gaming to console. I think keyboard/mouse is greatly superior to a controller (especially for any sort of shooter). But for some games, having a single analog input is annoying.

Re:The only question that counts:

[PAStheLoD]

Valid point, I wasn't too specific. Of course it's either look or lean, or maybe a hybrid of the two, whereas trying to look behind the wall results in leaning. So, while you're holding the "lean button" one axis of the mouse controls leaning, but you're free to look up-down.

Also, it's just a matter of habit, I think. For example: player rushes to a cover, taps Q, leans & semi-aims with mouse, and if more freedom for aiming is required, then just releases Q, and he's free to aim, the character won't move, until he presses WASD.

As far as I can see, the problem is simply the fact, that in some situations our two hands are insufficient to control complex motions of our avatars. Maybe with a headband with two infrared dots and a sensor control of the camera could be moved away from the mouse.

Re:The only question that counts:

[JarinArenos]

I was thinking something more along the lines of this little toy, only better quality of course. Standard access to necessary keys, with the addition of a second analog control to complement the mouse. Much simpler than a wiimote headband, wouldn't you say?

Re:The only question that counts:

[PAStheLoD]

Honestly, I can't estimate how hard it would be to control two analog devices at once, and one with just one finger.

But this gaming pad looks far more convincing than the Logitech G13.

Re:The only question that counts:

[JarinArenos]

Honestly, I can't estimate how hard it would be to control two analog devices at once

You're saying you've never used a 360 or PS2/3 controller before?

And to be fair to the G13, its joystick seems to be an actual analog input, while the Belkin I linked is only an 8-way input. It's just shaped awkwardly.

Two thoughts

[bcmm]

They're quite right that the physics doesn't actually need to be physically accurate - during a firefight, it just has to look vaguely right. I worry that they might have one of those systems that very occasionally does something obviously weird, but we will see.

And the feeling of destructible environments is fun. It would be fun even if it didn't serve a purpose in the game - seeing a firefight in a confined space cause decent-looking bullet holes in walls and "more crates than you can shake a rocket launcher at" falling over (and chairs, etc.) is pretty fun, and I'd like to see a game make destructible environments ubiquitous enough that they feel like an extension of that, even when they aren't being used a gimmick.

Re:Two thoughts

[boneclinkz]

I've been playing a lot of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 online and the destructible environments actually add quite a bit to the game experience. I didn't think this would be the case, but once you get in the game and you find the wall you are cowering behind suddenly reduced to rubble, you realize that there is something to this concept besides mere gimmick. In the same vein, on wooded maps I find myself using heavy machine guns to clear away the tree cover, which makes it much, MUCH easier to spot the camouflaged snipers that hide in the undergrowth and call down mortar strikes. I'm excited to see how advanced this feature can get.

Space Invaders

[xiang shui]

"You can also brilliantly modify cover objects - if you're hiding behind a crate and want to take out enemies without popping up from behind it, shoot a hole in it."

Space Invaders has had this feature for a while now.

Re:Space Invaders

[Leonard Fedorov]

Also, reading the sales brief for a previous game (also named Bodycount, funnily enough) one notices a few.. marked similarities:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/operation-body-count

Quoting:
"OBC also features a near fully destructible environment; the Flame Thrower can set bad guys, scenery and the level itself on fire, which could make movement extremely hazardous for the player, especially as the fire randomly spreads. The Grenade launcher meanwhile can destroy any wall (with some hard coded exceptions)."

Which sounds just like what we have here. Except this game was released in 1994...
"Next Gen" huh?

Re:Space Invaders

[Dexter Herbivore]

Yeah, I have the dreadful feeling that I've heard all of this before... with just about every shooter that's come out with anything destructible in the environment. Strangely enough, by the time it gets to release the destruction always seems to be limited to specific objects in the environment. "Yes, you can shoot that light successfully, but no you can't shoot that cupboard."

Re:Space Invaders

[crotherm]

True Combat, Quake 3 mod, had the ability to shoot through object for some time. Too bad enough players for critical mass was not included.

Re:Space Invaders

[fractoid]

"OBC also features a near fully destructible environment; the Flame Thrower can set bad guys, scenery and the level itself on fire, which could make movement extremely hazardous for the player, especially as the fire randomly spreads."

Fire doesn't randomly spread. It spreads fairly predictably, in fact.

Also, wouldn't a crate that you can blow a hole through make for a pretty useless piece of cover? Given that your adversaries can blow holes right back...

Re:Space Invaders

[Barny]

Not to mention that if a shot from your gun makes a nice hole in an object for you to see through, how many holes in the object can the enemies make? And how many of those holes will proceed with their holiness into you?

Re:Space Invaders

[radone]

I suppose your enemies shoot rubber bullets. Or paintballs. They're the peaceful kind.

Re:Space Invaders

[mdf-flynn]

Fry: I still have a trick or two up my sleeve. Watch as I fire upwards through our own shield!
Bender: [panicked] He's a mad man! A mad man!

Re:Space Invaders

[Bastardchyld]

Fire doesn't randomly spread. It spreads fairly predictably, in fact.

I am just imagining how fun random fire would be. Although it is not truly random if there is no possibility that you face can light you a$$ on fire.

Also, wouldn't a crate that you can blow a hole through make for a pretty useless piece of cover? Given that your adversaries can blow holes right back...

We will of course implement the same mildly retarded AI that is currently used. So if they cannot see you then you are not there. Even if the box you are crouching behind is shooting them.

-matt

Re:Space Invaders

[icebraining]

Fire doesn't randomly spread. It spreads fairly predictably, in fact.

It depends. Fire spreads differently if exposed to wind. Since wind can be random and you can't "feel" it in a game, fire can also be quite random for the player.

Re:Space Invaders

[fractoid]

I guess so. That reminds me, actually, of a beta-tester 'war story' that I read about Far Cry, where the guy shot a couple of oil drums (setting them on fire) then went off to do something else. About half an hour later he had a big message pop up telling him he'd won the game. It turns out that the burning oil drums had set fire to some grassland, which in turn caused a forest fire that just happened to incinerate the end boss. I don't know if it's true, but it's a brilliant demonstration of how simulation-based games can have unexpected outcomes which might not be particularly beneficial from the designers' point of view.

Re:Space Invaders

[Anonymous Coward]

'Cause as we all know irl when there's a sniper shooting everybody immediately knowns where the bullet comes from so he's not hidden anymore...

Re:Space Invaders

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

And, naturally, any door for which you must collect the keycard will be utterly indestructible, no matter how flimsy it appears compared to the gigantic armored monstrosities that you can destruct just fine...

Re:Space Invaders

[Anonymous Coward]

Epic.

Re:Space Invaders

[delinear]

Cover's not just about stopping bullets, it's also about leaving the enemy guessing where you are - admittedly a crate that the enemy can shoot through is almost as bad as standing in the open, but that "almost" could be the difference between a flesh wound and a headshot...

Re:Space Invaders

[delinear]

Like the equally dumb AI which states the second one pixel of your gun peeks around a corner two hundred feet from the enemy position, all five of them instantly know you are there and open up on you.

Re:Space Invaders

[SpeZek]

I'd have to call bullshit on that. The fire in Far Cry stops after a certain radius/consumption/time to prevent just such a scenario.

Re:Space Invaders

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because a beta tester encountered that scenario thus showing that they needed to limit the spread of the fire...

Re:Space Invaders

[boneclinkz]

The ZF plague from World of Warcraft was another hilarious example of this.

Re:Space Invaders

[Nerdposeur]

Hahaha! So true.

My *favorite* thing about Halo for PC was that there were places where you could bypass part of the board by doing something unexpected. There's a bridge in one place, for example, were you are supposed to fight your way across, into the mountain on the other side, and emerge in the valley underneath the bridge, then fight your way up another mountain at the end of the valley. OR you can steal a banshee, if you're fast enough, and fly straight to the other mountain. OR you can slide down to the valley and get slightly hurt, then grab a health pack.

Non-linear play is awesome. I'd love to see more of that, and less "you must get item X in order to do Y." More exceptions and clever workarounds, please!

Re:Space Invaders

[Anonymous Coward]

I got news for you, space invaders has had that since before this guy was born.

Re:Space Invaders

[Nasarius]

simulation-based games can have unexpected outcomes which might not be particularly beneficial from the designers' point of view.

But that's half the fun of open-world, sim-like games (the ones that actually deserve the "sandbox" term). Sure, major unintended functionality should be ironed out in testing, but the ability to approach a situation in a way the designer never anticipated is fantastic.

Re:Space Invaders

[Reziac]

That's a good point, and shouldn't enemy fire have the same capacity to eventually blast through your cover?? the advantage then becomes who knows where the other guy is, which could go to you or them. Sounds like fun to me :)

Re:Space Invaders

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes my face lights my ass on fire. Depends on what my face eats.

Re:Space Invaders

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't they just shoot you, through the crate?

Re:Space Invaders

[slimjim8094]

Why does it stop? Probably because some guy set a couple of oil drums on fire, which lit the grassland and started a forest fire.

Re:Space Invaders

[spire3661]

Zul'Gurub

Re:Space Invaders

[fractoid]

I still maintain that the Corrupted Blood plague was the single most awesome thing ever to happen in WoW, closely followed by the scourge invasion before WotLK, which Blizzard has said was based on the previous plague, but more controlled so as to interfere less with the gameplay of people who chose not to participate.

I hope they do something equally awesome for the launch of Cataclysm. :)

Wasn't this done before

[i ate my neighbour]

I thought Red Faction featured fully destructible environment and even cave digging?

Re:Wasn't this done before

[HopefulIntern]

Beat me to it.

Red Faction has/had Geo-mod fully destructible environments. If you wanted to, you can take a boatload of charges and make a cave 6 miles deep. Good luck getting back out again though!

Re:Wasn't this done before

[Bugamn]

Well, from the summary I infer that it wasn't fully:

The difference between this and say, Red Faction or Bad Company, is that the destruction isn't limited to pre-set building sections.

But Wikipedia says different:

GeoMod allows the player to alter (and destroy) the environment so significantly because of the way it designates altered (or "GeoModded") areas. Whereas other game engines would have to modify the shape of the altered object to create a similar effect, GeoMod creates special objects which represent empty space.

Re:Wasn't this done before

[The_mad_linguist]

There were internal environments (most irritatingly, cubicles) which were immune to geomodding.

Re:Wasn't this done before

[peterpi]

No, that was Boulder Dash ;)

Re:Wasn't this done before

[Anonymous Coward]

It was limited. Inside buildings you could only destroy specific areas. You couldn't destroy things like doors.

Cave digging had a set limit. Once you had carved out a certain amount of tunnels, the engine would not allow you to carve out any more.

Re:Wasn't this done before

[KDR_11k]

Yeah but that wasn't an engine limitation so much as a design limitation, destroying anything sounds fine until you try leading the player through your predefined set of corridors and realize he can just blow a hole into any of your carefully designed setpieces.

Re:Wasn't this done before

[anarche]

Actually, there are parts of this game they don't want you destroying

In effect, you're probably not going to get buildings collapsing, a la Bad Company, because the engine relies on the structural integrity of larger objects. What you do get however, is hundreds of smaller props being blown to pieces, drastically re-shaping the immediate world around you.

So completely destructible? maybe not...

otherwise, everyone would just get the biggest weapon and collapse a guard tower on the enemies...

Re:Wasn't this done before

[Rennt]

so did Nethack :P

Re:Wasn't this done before

[delinear]

That's why this kind of aim, while great in theory, usually falls down in practice - the second you run into something you want to destroy and they won't let you, the whole experience feels forced. It's still neat that you can shoot some stuff, but it just feels even more jarring when you find the bits you can't shoot. Fully destructible environments would probably work best in a pure multiplayer game, where you don't need to zone off specific areas and force the player through some predefined tunnel run.

Re:Wasn't this done before

[boneclinkz]

Absolutely. The problem isn't really with the feature, it's with game design. If you truly embrace this sort of technology, you need to be willing to have a game where the player is free to screw him/herself over. Save often.

Re:Wasn't this done before

[Monkeedude1212]

The first Red Faction was cool in the sense that yes, just about everything was destructable but after you finished blowing away the current level you were left with a cool metal boxframe that reminded me of Bomberman but in 3D.

The latest Red Faction is similar in that you can destroy just about any building but the landscape at least remains the same.

Either way, its been done before, and the only thing this "Next-Gen" might do to interest me is 4 player split screen, because Red Faction: Guerilla was too physics intensive on the Xbox to offer up reliable local multiplayer.

Re:Wasn't this done before

[Reziac]

Yeah, but wouldn't that be "realistic"?? to blow up a house you'd only need a grenade; to blow up that reinforced bunker you might have to go find a pocket nuke. So I'd say it's a matter of what's explodable being reasonably logical, depending on the materials it's made of. You wouldn't expect steel plate to fall apart like balsa after just a few shots; personally I'd be disappointed if everything had the same shatter strength.

Of course the same should apply to enemy fire and your cover ;)

Re:Wasn't this done before

[Abstrackt]

so did Nethack :P

Except when the floor was too hard to dig in.

Re:Wasn't this done before

[Idiomatick]

Uhh... don't give everyone fucking rocket launchers?

Reality is fairly destructible. But if I am a cop I'm not likely to shoot a wall a few million times to 'surprise anyone'. Pretty sure they'd notice. Not to mention I doubt I'd have so much ammo. So design involving limited ammo, weapon selection, decent AI and a variety of destructability is important. Not every wall needs to fantastically explode like crates or barrels do in... every game.

Re:Wasn't this done before

[shadowrat]

that's exactly what my experience with the crytek games has been. people kept saying, "OMG! You have to play Far Cry! You are totally free to use whatever tactics you want!"

However, everytime i play i find, i can only sneak up on certain guys. I can't sneak up on a guy and pull him off the back of a car, i can't climb into a boat, i can't start anything on fire without shooting stuff. All i really notice is all the freedom is an illusion. At least in Quake2, the freedom to strafe left or right felt real. Hell, even doom seemed to offer more freedom as you could try to get the monsters to shoot each other, fight, and ignore you.

the freedom in a game like crysis feels more like the freedom to do whatever the developers decided you could do.

Re:Wasn't this done before

[CarpetShark]

It doesn't need to be purely multiplayer to be interesting when you can destroy anything. It just needs to be balanced, so that there are consequences for destroying everything. Just running out of ammo or attracting attention would be a good start. Having the civilians rise against you while you sleep for making their village a desolate wasteland would be another.

Re:Wasn't this done before

[spire3661]

I think you forget how constrained shooters were before Far Cry.

Brilliant!

[RichiH]

You hide behind a crate, through which you can easily shoot a hole. This happens without anyone hearing the shot, the splintering wood and no one notices the exit hole in a random crate through which muzzle shots flash. _Then_ you shoot through said hole, not seeing anything. Your Magical Box Of Holding will then just eat all bullets which want to go the other way.

Moral? If you say you make realistic environments, make realistic examples.

Also, I probably care more than I should ;)

Re:Brilliant!

[darthflo]

Your typical shipping crate is fashioned from two kinds of woods - a hard, dense kind (beech, oak, etc) for the edges and a softer, ligher, cheaper kind (fir, spruce) for the rest of the panels. FMJ rounds may cause some (little) splintering in the former, but should pierce right through the latter, leaving very small holes (5-6 mm for a typical 5.56 mm round).
A silencer can take care of a lot of the noise, with the usual goal of moving the emission spectrum into a zone that's more difficult to pin down aurally.
Muzzle flashes like you know 'em from the movies and typical ego shooters are way exaggerated. In anything but darkness you won't typically see a flash even looking right at the weapon being fired. In the darkness, throw in a silencer; they work to suppress the little remaining flash, too.

Word of advice, though: Don't use incendiary (including tracers) or hollow point ammunition to shoot through crates containing potentially flammable stuff. A tracer may be enough to set off the wood shavings inside a crate. Keep a couple of inches between the muzzle and the crate to give the bullet some little time to stabilize in it's flight before it pierces through the first obstacle (this also helps against burn marks on the crate). And a hollow point may start to deform on the first impact, which would then leave quite a hole in your cover.

Finally about the "cover" aspects of non-bulletproof materials: they still work. A mobile target with, say, 0.5 sq m of vulnerable surface behind 4 sq m of target can increase your chances of not getting hit five- to eightfold. Throw in a vest and helmet, kneel down and a crate or two will increase your chance of survival by an order of magnitude.

Now that's caring more than one should. :p

Hey, wait a minute. Aren't you...

[BadAnalogyGuy]

*POP*POP*POP*POP*

Yup.

COPKILLER!

- Ice T (Republican)

FULLY destructible?

[thegarbz]

Are we actually talking fully destructible this time? Or the "fully destructible" environments of say Crysis? I don't care if I can chop down a tree with a machine gun. If bits of rock don't start getting chipped away as I'm hitting them with a bazooka then it's not a fully destructible environment, and if absolutely everything isn't destructible, then you're stuck with the same mundane limits as all former games regardless of what fancyness has been done with the game engine.

Re:FULLY destructible?

[ledow]

Yes, this pisses me off too. Until I can literally destroy *anything* in the game, without limitation at all, even if the game slowed to an absolute crawl when I do so... it's not a "true" destructible environment. I should be able to knock down every building, chop every door into small pieces, blast a tunnel through a hill or mountain, drain a lake by building a canal system etc... anything else is just "another" clever way of making it look like I can do that but actually just changing the limits of what I can do (i.e. stopping me doing some things and letting me do new things).

I'm looking forward to the day that I can tunnel up underneath the main zombie/alien/terrorist hideout.

Re:FULLY destructible?

[RobDollar]

Exactly. The article even states that "In effect, you're probably not going to get buildings collapsing, a la Bad Company, because the engine relies on the structural integrity of larger objects.".

So not only not as much destrction as Crysis, but "structural integrity of larger objects" means indestructable, so really nothing new here.

Re:FULLY destructible?

[MSojka]

> I'm looking forward to the day that I can tunnel up underneath the main zombie/alien/terrorist hideout.

So you want DwarfFortress, FPS version?

Re:FULLY destructible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Worms?

Re:FULLY destructible?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://voxelstein3d.sourceforge.net/

Re:FULLY destructible?

[Terrasque]

You might like Breach, looks promising at least.

Youtube vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQmXifRw9nM

To me...

[Anonymous Coward]

IT'S ALL ABOUT.... The legs. Valve did it right in Left 4 Dead, where looking down, you saw your legs and you instantly felt more like you were playing that character.

Then they f**ked up and removed the legs in Left 4 Dead 2.

Come on Valve! Give Gordon Freeman his legs!

Re:To me...

[GameboyRMH]

In Trespasser, it's all about the boobs.

Paradox?

[B1oodAnge1]

...fans of first-person shooters... ...can use the left analogue stick...

Your implication is quite ludicrous, sir.

Re:Paradox?

[dskzero]

Well, he's damn right. If you can't handle that ,well, hide under a rock. FPS games will never be console games unless some sort of revolutionary control pad appears.

Re:Paradox?

[Labcoat Samurai]

Well, he's damn right. If you can't handle that ,well, hide under a rock.

Instead of hiding under a rock, can I just continue to play and enjoy my console games where I shoot people from a first person perspective?

FPS games will never be console games unless some sort of revolutionary control pad appears.

*shrug* call them whatever you want, I guess. There's shooting, it's from a first person perspective, and it's fun. But I wouldn't want that to stop you from trying to shit all over someone else's enjoyment with your pointless sass and trash talk.

Re:Paradox?

[dskzero]

*shrug* call them whatever you want, I guess. There's shooting, it's from a first person perspective, and it's fun. But I wouldn't want that to stop you from trying to shit all over someone else's enjoyment with your pointless sass and trash talk.

Which is exactly what you're throwing up on the keyboard?

Console is good for platforms, sports, driving, adventure.

PC is good for strategy, MMORPG, and FPS.

Plain and simple.

If you're feel so insulted by pointing that out, well, I think you would do well to the world hiding under that fucking rock.

Re:Paradox?

[Anonymous Coward]

If analog sticks were better than mice for pointing, wouldn't we all be using THESE?

Re:Paradox?

[Labcoat Samurai]

Which is exactly what you're throwing up on the keyboard?

I'm trash talking you in that I'm accusing you of trash talk? Sure, whatever. If it makes you feel better, look at it however you like. I'm not really expecting a lot from this conversation.

If you're feel so insulted by pointing that out, well, I think you would do well to the world hiding under that fucking rock.

Insult me? I think you have an inflated sense of your own importance. It's not so much that I'm threatened by your opinion as perplexed. If a person enjoys playing first person shooters on a console, what do you care? I thought the point of video games was to entertain yourself and have fun.

Re:Paradox?

[dskzero]

Wow, stay at the topic at hand, no need to start getting offensive.

Re:Paradox?

[Labcoat Samurai]

Hmmm... I didn't *think* I got off topic... Sorry if I offended, though. Talking to random people on the internet, I don't tend to be quite as sensitive as usual.

I genuinely don't get why people feel the need to argue that consoles are no good for playing FPS games. I mean, sure, if you don't personally like the control scheme, that's reasonable, and it's reasonable to say so, but if someone else does enjoy it, why all the sass about them not being able to handle the truth or whatever?

It seems like PC FPS players have something to prove, and I'm not sure exactly what it is. Do they need to feel like they have the better experience? That's fine. Presumably they play on PC *because* they feel like they have a better experience that way, so I'd think that would be enough.

So, my only conclusion is that they feel like they need everyone else to recognize that they have the superior experience. It's not enough to enjoy playing a game and prefer the way you play it, but you also need everyone else to recognize the superiority of your preference.

Re:Paradox?

[dskzero]

Aight, much better this way.

Console gamers look exactly the same from this side of the argument. The seem to have the need to expose the consoles as the finest gaming platforms.

The problem lies in the control scheme, and the argument is that it is inferior. It's slower, less accurate, and forces the game to use some sort of autoaiming, which is generally a worse way to play. I'm a PC player at heart, and the two games I enjoy the most are, for the most part, generally better in the PC than in consoles, because they were thought out for PC, and the control scheme is better. I haven't tried RTS, but FPS with a control pad doesn't really work the same as a keyboard+mouse.

I'm never afraid to say that that combo, regardless of what's fun for anyone, is the way to play FPS so far. Anything else is inferior. There *might* be a way to make them work without dumbing them down - this meaning no autoaiming, for example - but so far they haven't succeded at all, and living in a decidedly mediocre era for videogames, i doubt they will in a long time.

Platforms, sports, adventure games, those are all games I will sit down and have some fun with a consoles. But if it was designed with a mouse in mind, it's better off with a mouse.

But well, you remind me that games are to have fun and lose girlfriends after all, so if it works for you, don't let a random stranger on the internet change your mind. You can try if you want *and i'm sure you've tried it*, but as you say, well, have fun.

Re:Paradox?

[Labcoat Samurai]

Yeah, I've tried it both ways. Played FPS games on PC exclusively until just a few years ago. Never figured that a console could be equal to the task. But then the convenience that comes with console ownership inspired me to try. It was clunky and difficult at first, but after a while, I got used to it and it became second nature. Not being tied down to a surface to put the mouse on and a big clunky keyboard to use ends up being nice. You definitely trade some precision, and the game coddles you a bit with aim assist, but if that sort of thing doesn't bother you (doesn't bother me), the convenience of the console, the compact controller, and the recliner lounging that comes with it is all very compelling.

Re:Paradox?

[Labcoat Samurai]

Oh, and the feedback of pulling an actual trigger to shoot and getting some vibration when you do so makes me feel more like I'm actually firing a gun, and I'm more of an immersive roleplaying guy than a leet skill-oriented arcade player guy at heart.

Re:Paradox?

[B1oodAnge1]

It seems like PC FPS players have something to prove, and I'm not sure exactly what it is. Do they need to feel like they have the better experience? That's fine. Presumably they play on PC *because* they feel like they have a better experience that way, so I'd think that would be enough.

The thing that is causing more and more of the PC gaming community to feel bitterly antagonistic is the continuing trend of "consolized" games being released for PC.

The PC is capable of a vastly better fps experience than the console is. Period.

However, none of that matters when the majority FPSs are developed with the limitations of consoles in mind (cover systems being a perfect case in point.)

So the bitterness is a product of envy. Not of your systems, but of your popularity. Many PC gamers are feeling increasingly ignored by the mainstream gaming industry.

Re:Paradox?

[Labcoat Samurai]

The thing that is causing more and more of the PC gaming community to feel bitterly antagonistic is the continuing trend of "consolized" games being released for PC.

Ah. I could see how that could be frustrating. I played Oblivion on the PC first, and I thought the spell selection system was a bit bizarre (coming off of NWN as my last PC RPG before it). Later discovered it was because of console support. On the other hand, that's laziness on Bethesda's part more than anything. Dragon Age on PC has a more proper hotkey bar, for example. Developing for consoles doesn't prevent a company from doing the PC version right, they just sometimes lazily choose not to...

The PC is capable of a vastly better fps experience than the console is. Period.

Vastly better for whom? For everyone? Because having played both extensively, I can say that that isn't true, since it is not a vastly better fps experience for me. I'm sure it is for you, and I respect that.

And this is the sort of thing I'm getting at. The only reason there's a PC vs console argument among gamers at all is that we speak in absolutes. The quality of an experience is highly subjective, and a person isn't wrong for having more fun one way vs another.

It's easy for me to see both sides having been on both sides, and the PC players have some compelling points when they're talking about the merits of the system and not just blanketly calling people wrong for enjoying something.

Mouse and keyboard is unquestionably more precise and responsive. For the competitive gamer a strong case can be made that it's the way to go. On the other hand, the controller has rudimentary haptics to simulate kick, and a proper trigger you can pull. Having used both, the mouse feels more like I'm controlling a game and the controller feels more like I'm immersed in the situation. I think that for the more casual player who is interested in the experience more than the challenge, a strong case can be made for the controller (for the convenience of lounging back in your recliner without perching your mouse and keyboard awkwardly and precariously around you as well). If those perks don't particularly appeal to you, that's fine, you're clearly playing on the right platform, then.

However, none of that matters when the majority FPSs are developed with the limitations of consoles in mind (cover systems being a perfect case in point.)

Hmmm..... It's definitely the case that tilting a joystick is more natural for peaking out of cover than moving a mouse, though, fundamentally, I think cover mechanics serve a very worthwhile cross-platform purpose, specifically the idea that you can aim and shoot at enemies without exposing your whole body to fire. In realistic tactical shooters where you can't take much damage, it's important to have ways to reduce the risk of getting hit, and it improves the feeling of being a real life spec ops agent rather than a power suited space marine who could survive a tank round.

So the bitterness is a product of envy. Not of your systems, but of your popularity. Many PC gamers are feeling increasingly ignored by the mainstream gaming industry.

Hard for me to speak to that. PC gaming is still pretty popular last I heard, so if there really is an industry apathy toward PC development, I'd blame the industry and not console gamers. Maybe they figure that if they transition to consoles exclusively, their PC fans will follow them, and then they can develop in a magical fantasy land where piracy doesn't exist at all.....

Re:Paradox?

[B1oodAnge1]

Developing for consoles doesn't prevent a company from doing the PC version right, they just sometimes lazily choose not to...

I agree, the problem, as you say, is that the majority of developers seem to be getting lazier and lazier.

it is not a vastly better fps experience for me. I'm sure it is for you, and I respect that.

Mouse and keyboard is unquestionably more precise and responsive. For the competitive gamer a strong case can be made that it's the way to go. On the other hand, the controller has rudimentary haptics to simulate kick, and a proper trigger you can pull. Having used both, the mouse feels more like I'm controlling a game and the controller feels more like I'm immersed in the situation. I think that for the more casual player who is interested in the experience more than the challenge, a strong case can be made for the controller (for the convenience of lounging back in your recliner without perching your mouse and keyboard awkwardly and precariously around you as well.)

In my opinion, the first person perspective is not well suited to the lay back and play from the couch style of gameplay.
Note that I'm not saying that all FPS games are better on the PC, I'm saying that the PC is capable of supporting a game that better takes advantage of the strengths of the first person perspective. I would offer up Half-Life and System Shock as two perfect examples of this, off the top of my head.

I think cover mechanics serve a very worthwhile cross-platform purpose, specifically the idea that you can aim and shoot at enemies without exposing your whole body to fire.

On a PC you can do this without super annoying systems that take full control away from the player.

Hard for me to speak to that. PC gaming is still pretty popular last I heard, so if there really is an industry apathy toward PC development, I'd blame the industry and not console gamers. Maybe they figure that if they transition to consoles exclusively, their PC fans will follow them, and then they can develop in a magical fantasy land where piracy doesn't exist at all.....

For examples of this look at Modern Warfare 2, as well as the whole Ubisoft DRM spectacle.

You're absolutely right that it's not the console gamers fault, I was just explaining where the animosity comes from.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

More British terminology

[nacturation]

Ah, but then there's Black. Released at the fag end of the PlayStation 2 era and developed by Guildford-based studio Criterion, this 2006 cult classic, was a stylised, hyper-kinetic deconstruction of the FPS concept.

I take it that's what non-British speakers would call "the tail end"? Otherwise, that's a pretty gay piece of tail they're smoking.

Re:More British terminology

[Spad]

They're clearly talking about the period towards the end of the PS2's life when it gained a huge gay following...

No, it's one of those idioms that confuses Americans in the UK and gets Britons in the US into a lot of trouble; a fag is a cigarette, thus a fag end is a cigarette end, thus they are indeed referring to the tail end of the PS2's life.

Re:More British terminology

[The Rizz]

a fag is a cigarette

You're a cigarette.

Re:More British terminology

[auLucifer]

Woah grampa. Did you think that up yourself?

Re:More British terminology

[nacturation]

It must get really confusing when you start talking about the fag end of a fanny pack.

Re:More British terminology

[Anonymous Coward]

UM..actually....no.

it refers to the end of a rope......the "fag" end. The end of a hemp rope that is all kinda tied up with smaller string to stop it unravelling.

It's from the old sailing days........ I dunno...google it.

Re:More British terminology

[overlordofmu]

In college, my freshman year roommate was Indian. India has a wonderful educational system left over from British colonial rule (if you are rich enough to send your children).

Q:How does this fit in?
A: My roommate spoken English English and not the shit that Americans call English.

This leads us to the first day of class and I am coming back to the dorm and smoking a cigarette which is something my roommate had yet to see me do. As I walk up to Dushie (his nickname) and his friends he loudly calls out to me over the 20 or so meters I have yet to cover, "What are you doing with that fag hanging out of your mouth?" I stopped and looked around to see what he was referring to because, after all, this was college . . .

Re:More British terminology

[The Rizz]

Woah grampa. Did you think that up yourself?

Actually, I'm quoting Kevin Smith, you whippersnapper.

Now get off my lawn!

Re:More British terminology

[Hurricane78]

About your sig:

Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.

Nope, Funny moderation does not give you any karma at all.

Re:More British terminology

[Reziac]

Fanny packs have a different end we should know about??!

Re:More British terminology

[Blakey Rat]

No, it's one of those idioms that confuses Americans in the UK and gets Britons in the US into a lot of trouble; a fag is a cigarette, thus a fag end is a cigarette end,

Ok...

thus they are indeed referring to the tail end of the PS2's life.

Wha-huh? How did you get from A to B there?

In the US, we don't say "cigarette end" to mean "tail end." You seem to take it for granted that we do, which is really the weirdest part.

Re:More British terminology

[Anonymous Coward]

About your sig:

Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.

Nope, Funny moderation does not give you any karma at all.

Whoosh.

Re:More British terminology

[Hatta]

a fag is a cigarette, thus a fag end is a cigarette end

So the fag end is the butt?

Re:More British terminology

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't take anything for granted, he just didn't show all his work.

UK:
fag end -> cigarette end -> end of a cigarette-> end of something

US:
tail end -> end of something

Thus:
fag end ~ tail end

Here in the US we'd also say "ass end". Do they say "arse end" in the UK?

Re:More British terminology

[nacturation]

Who said anything about funny? Read it again.

Re:More British terminology

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK a "fanny pack" is referred to as a bum-bag, my dear boy. ;-)

Next Gen, huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Next gen for a console, that was developed 5-6.... uh, quite a while ago. Same ol' tricks huh, what to look forward too, a F.O.V of 75 for added difficulty that cant be changed, an AI that stands while your hiding behind a box before returning to original position. 2 graphic settings, translated A B C D control that still appear in pop ups with a description down below and bad/lazy work covered up by bloom with an that Orange tinge these games seam to have. Yet marketed as next generation and ported incomplete to a PC where it gets even worse. So when is the next gen FPS coming where you can shoot yourself in the foot.

Next next gen.

[w0mprat]

For me a next gen shooter would be any FPS without... crates.

Re:Next next gen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen brother, amen.

Remember kids (developers), crowbars are for headcrabs, not for crates.

Admittedly some of the crate stacking "puzzles" were somewhat neat, but it's a very good thing that they were few and far between. This kind of crap belongs in a FPS like a jumping puzzle belongs in a FPS, as in, it doesn't.

Out of curiosity though, what ever happened to the Quake style FPS where "duck for cover" is never even a consideration? Running and gunning can be very therapeutic, but in any game released in the past 5 years if you run and gun you'll spend most of your time waiting to respawn. Not so much fun.

Re:Next next gen.

[Narishma]

Quake-like FPS games aren't suitable for consoles, therefore they are not being made anymore.

Re:Next next gen.

[loufoque]

Interestingly enough, I think Quake 3 on the Dreamcast was the best console FPS ever.
For some reason though, it sucked hard on PS2.

Re:Next next gen.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're a barrel man?

Re:Next next gen.

[Hurricane78]

Quake-like FPS games aren't suitable for consoles, therefore good FPSes are not being made anymore.

There. Fixed that for ya.
Seriously. Quake (especially CPMA) is pretty much the perfect shooter. You can’t improve the pure shooter aspect anymore.
And if you want to talk about other aspects, let’s talk about System Shock (1) which came out 3 months after Doom (1), and which still is unbeaten in what you can do.

Re:Next next gen.

[Blakey Rat]

Seriously. Quake (especially CPMA) is pretty much the perfect shooter.

So says those who have not played Tribes.

Your claim seems especially odd since Unreal Tournament completely annihilated Quake when it came out.

You can't improve the pure shooter aspect anymore.

Sure you can.

What's your opinion of Unreal 3, for example? Do you consider it note a "pure shooter?" How do you feel about any of the recent Battlefield releases? Or does having classes and some complexity make them not "pure shooters?" How about the new Wolfenstein release, or Quake IV (since you're such a fan of id?)

Or, and much more likely, have you never played it because you're an aging grump who hasn't touched any new games since 2005, but feels perfectly justified saying that they all suck?

And if you want to talk about other aspects, let's talk about System Shock (1)

Except System Shock wasn't that good of a game. System Shock 2, however, is a masterpiece.

Re:Next next gen.

[Hatta]

They were perfected with Q3 and UT, anything else would be a rehash.

Re:Next next gen.

[spire3661]

Quake 3 on Dreamcast was so infuriatingly slow. Hard to accept that in a port of a PC game that lets you actually move faster in multiplayer if you had killer hardware.

codemasters

[Anonymous Coward]

i thought that codemasters had given up on making decent games a long time ago.

nowadays they seem to spend most of their time suing people for pirating their pinball simulators.

this little fps gem outta Guildford will be a dud of course, like their other offerings.

cheers for the slash-verstisment tho.

don't like pressure to " Create an Account"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom Force

I always thought that was cool for distructiveness.....

Re:don't like pressure to " Create an Account"...

[Jainith]

Silent Storm!

Lame

[argStyopa]

Getting hyperbolic language from the game's lead programmer is...unconvincing.

"Everything being destructible" isn't much of a goal, particularly in their example. Shooting through a box to give yourself cover? Um, if I can shoot through it and destroy it, how much value does it provide as COVER?

No, as a longtime shooter fan what I'd like is more along the developmental lines: I'd like a 3d world engine in which you actually BUILD things from their pieces, like in the real world. If I build a wall of 3d-model planks using 3d-model nails, then each plank would have it's own destructiblity, however, the attachment points would also (for example) have their own strength, so if a grenade goes off or a character kicks the wall, that plank would respond appropriately. This would also make the world more intuitive to build, getting more people to mod.

Re:Lame

[Mantrid]

That sounds like Red Faction:Guerilla, though you can't assemble things - but it does have all the structural stuff you're referring to.

Bad Company 2

[nedwidek]

"You can also brilliantly modify cover objects - if you're hiding behind a crate and want to take out enemies without popping up from behind it, shoot a hole in it."

Sounds suspiciously like what I did in BC2 last night. Noob tubed a hole in a cement barrier and blew out the wall on the side of the building so I could cover the MCOM station. Took the attackers (squad rush) a few minutes to figure out where I was at since the kill cam was turned off.

Re:Bad Company 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody cares.

Ummmm ...

[tgd]

"if you're hiding behind a crate and want to take out enemies without popping up from behind it, shoot a hole in it."

If we're looking for realism, I'm pretty sure in the real world a crate you can shoot a hole through is one the guy on the other side can shoot a hole through.

Probably not good cover.

Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Epic Fail.

This article starts off with the premise that everything is destructible.

Then you learn thats a lie, its almost everything.

Only props will be destructible, walls (and no doubt the ground too) will remain the same.

So no one's done it yet, still.

Not being seen

[bareman]

Cover can serve multiple purposes such as armor or camouflage. Cover that you can shoot a hole through is not going to make for effective armor, however it may serve effectively as camouflage.

And for those who've forgotten the importance of not being seen...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idXgVLpB6bY

Re:Not being seen

[VGPowerlord]

And for those who've forgotten the importance of not being seen...

...go play a Metal Gear game.

Re:Not being seen

[holygoat]

If it doesn't stop projectiles, but stops the enemy seeing you, the term is "concealment", not "cover".

Re:Random fact

[skam240]

Random Fact: No one cares.

Brown Note time!

[CODiNE]

"We'll tie it in with audio too," says Cant. "So when there's thunder, you're hardly aware of it, but it'll be sub-bass stuff - the feel is tied in with indigestion..."

Um, not so safe

[UberOogie]

... if you're hiding behind a crate and want to take out enemies without popping up from behind it, shoot a hole in it. Bingo, you've got a comparatively safe firing vantage.

If you can shoot through one end of it, I'm pretty sure they can shoot through the other end of it.

Might I add one more thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Blowing apart the whole world is fine, FUN even. But can I make my own maps? Can I host my own server? Unless I can do that it's going to get stale really damn fast, even ignoring the stupid console controls. I want to set up my own dominos and blow them to kingdom come.

Left Analog Stick?

[djdevon3]

I'm sorry I seem to be missing a left analog stick ON MY PC. I have a much better input device called a MOUSE. Consoles can suck it.

Re:Left Analog Stick?

[Fwipp]

A mouse? No, you have a mouse instead of a right analog stick. Instead of the left analog stick that allows you to walk or run at different speeds in more than eight directions, you have WASD, and maybe a sprint or crouch key.

I'll take being able to walk where I want regardless of where I am facing over being able to play "click on their heads" any day.

Next Gen?

[Labcoat Samurai]

Aren't we far enough into this generation to call it "current gen" instead? It's getting to the point that when someone says "Next Gen" I get my hopes up for a moment that I'm going to hear some news about the Xbox 720 or whatever inane thing they decide to call it.

Did Anyone Else...

[The Wooden Badger]

Hear Smash TV when you read the word "Bingo" in the quote?

Re:Did Anyone Else...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I certainly do now...

Oh jeez

[GameboyRMH]

I'm a PC gamer and I prefer a keyboard and mouse for FPSes. But a gamepad is generally usable as well, it just takes a little getting used to. Every non-PC gamer on the planet seems to be OK with playing FPSes with a gamepad...

Re:Oh jeez

[IndustrialComplex]

I'm a PC gamer and I prefer a keyboard and mouse for FPSes. But a gamepad is generally usable as well, it just takes a little getting used to. Every non-PC gamer on the planet seems to be OK with playing FPSes with a gamepad...

As does anyone who has only ever had McDonald's hamburgers. It works, but there IS better out there, they just don't know it.

What I want to see...

[Hurricane78]

...is something else than the “run around and shoot everything in sight, press this button there, and perhaps have this cutscene”.

You know... something different than just re-heating old ideas.

I mean, System Shock 1 still beats most FPSes in terms of what you can do, hands down. And that game is exactly as old as Doom 1. (Yep, while Doom got the publicity for the gore, SS1 was the real innovation here.)

Hello, Professor Falken

[Anonymous Coward]

You might try "Team Fortress Classic", which is a mod for Half-Life.

It can be a manic frag fest where the only objective is to have as much ammo airborne as possible. But it can also be an interesting strategic and planning game. I've been playing for a few years now and I find that careful planning and knowing what archetype has an advantage on certain maps makes all the difference. Yes, twelve-year old buttonmashers can make for an interesting game, but they are no match for a well-coordinated attach on their base.

The graphics are "meh" compared to todays blockbusters but that is actually an advantage. TF2 suffers from so much visual overload the game is hardly playable.

As WOPR would say: "An interesting game. The only winning move is to keep playing until you've won!" ;-)

Leaning is innovative?

[Tim C]

Am I missing something, or is leaning to one side a control feature that's been available in (PC) FPS games for a decade or more?

Voxels

[Bugamn]

There are games with voxels that allows you to destroy pratically anything.

Only the indies can claim "next generation"

[rastoboy29]

Like my game (shameless plug).  Srsly though it uses the hardware in some unusual (to date) ways that I haven't seen in any major label game.  Mostly I'm talking about polysoup collision (instead of convex-only BSP) which lets me let my imagination run wild in making levels.

Really I've only just scratched the surface.  But the big guys don't take crazy chances because they are "sane" and "rational", because they can afford to be.

Pokemon Snap

[scottfhardy]

"you can use the left analogue stick to subtly look and aim around your cover object, ducking and peeking to gain that perfect view of the war zone"

This is exactly what we need...As mobs are rapidly running towards my cover, I will be finessing my camera for that "beautiful landscape of the warzone". Welcome back to Pokemon Snap.

Destruction vs Gameplay?

[bpowe08]

Destructible environments would be effing awesome.... but sometimes gameplay is more important than the ability to blow a hole in a wall. If this game has a legit story behind it or even a GTA sort of feel... I'm HOOKED!